Men from Earth
by EvilAsch
Summary: HL/Jerome Bixyby's The Man from Earth.    John Oldman rendezvous with Methos in the desert and the two share a bottle.
1. Desert Night

**A/N this is a cross between the excellent movie Jerome Bixby's the Man from Earth (available on netflix instant and amazon etc, the production quality is eurgh but the plot, performances, and soundtrack are excellent) and Highlander. The Man from Earth is roughly about a man that confesses to his academic colleagues that he is a 14,000 year old magdalanian caveman but that just brushes the surface, I highly recommend hunting it down.**

The man sat crouching near the fire, his back was toward it, his head tilted upward toward the icy pinpricks of stars in the velvet night. The fire hissed and popped as it settled. A compound bow fashioned from wood and animal horn lay at the man's side along with a half dozen handmade and feathered arrows. A noise beyond the man in the black desert drew his immediate attention. He rose to the balls of his feet and silently retrieved the weapons at his side.

He was wearing a long sleeved knit shirt and jeans but barefoot, the cuffs of his jeans rolled up to the middle of his calf. He crept forward, still on the balls of his feet, arrow fitted to the bow, both held in front and slightly to the side of his creeping hunching form. He froze again.

The man looked to be in his mid-thirties, healthy and handsome with a tanned and lined face. Dark eyes and dark hair were black in the diffuse firelight. His face was still, not hunting or suspicious but utterly still as his dark eyes drifted over the night landscape.

"I'd prefer it if you didn't shoot me with that thing John." An accented voice rang out from the darkness.

The man, John's face split wide in a grin and he rose and lowered the weapon.

Another man appeared at the edge of the firelight. He was tall, slightly taller than John with shorter hair, a prominent nose and lean sharp features.

"Methos."

"How's my favorite caveman?" Methos asked.

"Why are you out here?"

"You invited me." Methos snorted and slipped a bag off his shoulder he crouched and fished around in it, when he rose he held an amber bottle shot with gold in the firelight.

John laughed again.

"Yes but I invited you to meet me at the parking area, y'know fourteen miles hard hike that way –" John gestured beyond the fire in the opposite direction from that which Methos had approached.

"I had to take a detour." Methos snorted and cracked the seal on the liquor.

"Right, watchers or another immortal?" John smiled sitting back at the fire, this time facing it.

"Neither, an upset rancher with his daughter's virtue in mind." Methos sighed.

John chuckled.

Methos handed the now open bottle to John, John looked at the label emitted an appreciative whistle and knocked back a mouthful. He handed it back to Methos and Methos sat near enough to swap the bottle easily. He leaned back in the still warm sand and sighed.

"Seriously a rancher's daughter?"

"I got to town a bit early." Methos grunted.

A companionable silence fell.

"Did you tell them?" Methos asked after a few more exchanges of the bottle.

John didn't reply at first. He gazed into the coals of the fire and shifted into a more comfortable position. Methos waited patiently. The desert and the liquor dictated a more…natural interaction none of the pointless hurrying of life away from the desert and the bottle.

"Yeah, yeah I did. Mostly."

Methos quirked an eyebrow at the other man.

John smiled ruefully.

"Mostly?" Methos prompted handing his friend the bottle.

"They panicked, they were frightened, hateful. Thought I'd lost it. So I lied, I let them off the hook." Methos was nodding along a sad twist of his mouth softening his features.

"What did you tell them?"

"I-"He laughed and shook his head, "I told them it was a story that they'd inspired me to create but I'd taken it too far."

"Good excuse. Did it stick?"

John handed the bottle to Methos. He took a long pull and handed it back. John set the bottle in the sand between them.

"Maybe." John looked pained, grieved, but Methos didn't pry.

"Where to next?"

"John Savage has a job offer at UW-Seacouver." John said with a sly smirk.

"Ah, that would be the…anthropologist?" Methos asked pausing to think.

"Yeah, that'd be the one." John agreed with a smile.

"Think I might know a place you can stay." Methos smiled and picked up the bottle.


	2. Morning After

**A/N from this point on there will be spoilers for The Man from Earth, therefore if you haven't seen it you may want to stop here and come back once you have. :)**

Dawn broke bringing heat to the icy desert. The two men were asleep near the smoldering ashes of the fire. The empty bottle lay top down in the sand a single drop of amber liquid clung to the inside of the neck. As the sun rose it's light shot through the bottle and the amber bead, casting a colored shadow on the dusky sand.

John woke first. He rose and quietly buried the fire. He retrieved his bow and the arrows then woke Methos. The immortal grunted and rose easily. He retrieved the bottle and eyed the bead of amber as it slid to the bottom.

"Killed it." He said with a touch of longing.

John laughed at him.

"Liquid breakfast? Come on I'm guessing you don't have a vehicle?"

Methos grunted at John and picked up his pack.

"Rancher filled it with holes." The immortal sighed mournfully.

John shook his head with a smile and started the 14 mile hike back to civilization. They walked in silence until midday when John paused under a rock overhang and sat.

"Siesta?" Methos asked. John grunted at him.

"Hey now I know you know English caveman."

"We'll wait here until it gets cooler."

Methos nodded. He wasn't unfamiliar with deserts but this was John's show. The men didn't talk, they didn't really need to and the heat was oppressive, drying and invasive. Methos slept lightly, his dreams were nonsense fluff not nightmares for which he was grateful.

John stayed awake. His gaze drifted over the scrub and dunes. He spotted some kind of rodent and watched it scurry about scavenging and snuffling for seeds and whatever else it could find to eat. As the sun shifted position the temperature dropped a few degrees. John got to his feet and Methos rose with him. They made it to the parking area by late afternoon.

"When will you be in Seacouver?" Methos asked.

"Few weeks, I'll give you a call."

Methos studied his friend. John was an aberration that even Methos was amazed by. He wasn't an immortal, he was simply a very, very old human being. Almost three times Methos' age. John had the advantage of a mortal memory, he wasn't cursed by the perfect recall of an immortal and he didn't have to play the Game. Methos was sometimes jealous of his friend but then, well, John could have children. Something which Methos had decided after long thought was worse than perfect recall. Methos had raised children and watched them die but they weren't_ his_, sometimes he pitied John.

"Why don't you come up early? Take a vacation, get to know the city before you start?"

"Maybe I will." John's voice was a gentle rumble. Methos nodded and got into the passenger side of John's truck. Again Methos noticed the sadness on his friend's face. John wasn't a sad man, he had managed to avoid the pitfalls that trapped so many of Methos' kind. He managed to forget the tragedies of his life, eventually the sharp edge of pain dulled and likely faded completely. While Methos had known more immortals than just Connor Macleod…or even himself to offer their heads to a friend out of despair or fear to the best of Methos' knowledge John had never given up. But the sadness Methos saw in in John's face worried him.

They rode in companionable silence. Methos felt the vague aches and unease that came with a long night of drinking, sleeping rough hadn't helped. He watched the desert pass by the truck, pink, orange, lightest brown and at the edges of the horizon, between the arching and jutting rocks and sandstone towers deepest blue. He daydreamed, thoughts drifting back to decades and eons past.

John said something low in his soft kind voice. Methos blinked and turned to face him.

"Sorry I was woolgathering." He apologized.

"Do you want me to run you to the airport?" John asked again.

Methos didn't answer for a moment.

"Yeah, that should be fine, I doubt the rancher will think that far."

John wondered if there really was a rancher out there with a shot gun full of rock salt and a soiled daughter. John was never really sure when his friend might be dissembling or covering his darker activities with a jest or a grin. Silence fell again but this time it was more acute. The dull rumble of tires on concrete and the roar of the truck engine filled the cab.

"What's bothering you John?" Methos asked finally.

John flinched slightly, shifted in his seat, and pointedly focused on driving.

"You _can_ talk to me, I won't bite."

John smiled at that.

"I've heard otherwise." John jested quietly.

"Well, I don't bite without being asked first, nicely." Methos sighed dramatically.

John smiled again but it was sad, tired.

"I met my son again."

Methos ran through his memories of John, what he knew of John's families, and did the math for ages. it took him about ten seconds.

"Will Gruber?" He asked quietly voice barely audible over the road and the engine. Methos thought he saw John flinch again but wasn't looking directly at him so he couldn't be sure.

"He had a heart attack and died in my arms." John said softly.


	3. Hello

Methos simply put a hand on his friend's shoulder. Sometimes words weren't adequate or for that matter necessary. For some reason Methos thought of Richie then. Richie wasn't his son, or even Macleod's really but he was…a surrogate maybe?

Methos' relationship with Richard Ryan was a complex one but he liked the younger man and would certainly take offense to anyone intending him harm. He imagined Richie sickening and dying in his arms while he watched helplessly, and not just dying but _dying_, a true and permanent death.

"I'm sorry." Methos said gently, he withdrew his hand and let the hot noise of the road fill the cab. Once enough time had passed Methos brought up a more neutral topic.

"New bow?"

John smiled his small smile.

"Replacement, it's temporary, the one I usually use was misplaced during my last move."

"You misplaced your bow? Must be getting soft in your age John." Methos said and smirked.

"You feel like a beer?" John asked.

"Why are you wasting your breath asking? You remember that wretched Akkadian beer I used to swill like water right?"

John laughed out loud and nodded.

"Yeah I do." He admitted.

"Well then, what do you think?" Methos snorted in mock exasperation.

The bar was near the small municipal airport. John and Methos entered laughing over something John had said. The patrons were mostly locals with a few regional pilots thrown in. A momentary silence fell as the patrons waited for the door to close behind the newcomers, blocking out the blinding desert sun and allowing the patrons to size up the newcomers. Once it became clear there was no threat or interest in the two men conversation restarted and revved up to a dull buzz with occasional outbursts of laughter or cursing.

The two sat at the bar and ordered draft beers. They drank, ate peanuts, caught up, and generally enjoyed themselves. John's phone range after they'd been there an hour or so. He pulled it from his pocket to check the number. The smallest of shadows drifted across his face before he answered it.

"Sandy?"

Methos tried to listen, more out of habit than any real interest, but the bar was far too loud. John smiled warmly and laughed.

"You're sure?" He asked, followed by another pause. He nodded and hung up the phone.

"Sandy would like to meet you." John said with a small laugh.

Methos took a long pull from his beer and nodded for a refill.

"Sandy?" He asked with a quirked eyebrow and a smirk. John ignored Methos' suggestive eyebrow and picked up his beer. They finished their drinks and hit the road again.

"Do you want to talk about Will?" Methos asked after awhile.

"No, thank you but no. I…I've never seen one of my children die, I usually move on before they're even adults."

Methos allowed a gentle quiet to fall, if John wanted to say more he could.

"You know that I have perfect recall." Methos said as John changed lanes and prepared to merge onto a freeway.

"Yes." John agreed accelerating and slipping onto the nearly deserted highway.

"Would you prefer that?"

"To what?" John asked curiously.

"To being able to have children, would it make things easier?" It was a genuine question.

John thought about it.

"I don't know, I don't have perfect recall now so .., it's hard to compare."

"I suppose that's true." Methos sighed.

"Would you? Trade them?" John asked in kind.

"I honestly don't know, I've wondered. I've raised children, seen them grow to adulthood, even marry. Once or twice I ran across them when they were ancient and dying. A few even died in youth, illness, accidents, or violence. But…they weren't my blood so I think," Methos took a deep breath, "I think I lied to myself or convinced myself that because they weren't my biological children they mattered less, the pain mattered less. But of course how could I really know? How do you subjectively compare two things when you only have experience with one of them?" Methos speculated.

"Right. I know that I wouldn't trade anything if it meant joining the Game." He said somberly.

"Smart man." Methos laughed bitterly.

Shortly after their first meeting – an accidental collision in a market – John had witnessed Methos take another immortal's head and heal from the injuries inflicted in the fight. John had helped the weakened immortal to safety and they'd spent hours talking. Methos had explained the Game and all the rules his kind were bound by. John had been equally fascinated and repulsed by Methos' life. The two had parted friends.

"Tell me about Sandy. Does she know?"

"Yes, she was with the others."

"She didn't doubt you did she?"

John smiled at Methos' smug expression.

"No, no she didn't."

"How honest were you?"

"I wasn't cruel but I made sure she understood we wouldn't have much time together."

"Let me guess, ten years.?" Methos asked with a knowing smile.

"Yes, maybe longer if she doesn't mind dropping her entire life in ten years and there aren't any children." John sighed.

"She might surprise you." Methos suggested.

John laughed out loud.

"Yes she might." He agreed.

John and Sandy were staying at a motel for a few days while John wrapped up his final business and waited to hear about the arrangements for Will's funeral. Sandy met them in the parking lot, she was tall, willowy, her hair was straight and short cut in a neat crop. In the fading light of the desert sun it looked shot with red gold.

"What have you told her about me?" Methos asked as he got out of the truck.

"You're an old friend, she doesn't know that you know about me."

Methos nodded and walked around the front of the vehicle to greet her. She was well spoken, intelligent, and Methos thought he could almost feel the warmth and love she had for John.

"Sandy John here tells me that you've agreed to accompany him to our water logged land." Methos teased.

"Our land? Are you a citizen?" she asked smiling and shaking his hand. Unlike many women whose handshakes were tentative, weak, or loose enough that Methos feared injuring them, her grip was strong and sure, dry and warm.

"Of a sort." He admitted.

"Adam is a linguist at UW-Seacouver." John explained.

"Well, welcome to our humble and very temporary abode Adam." She laughed and lead the men to the room she and John had rented.

Methos paused outside the room; John hesitated and glanced up at him.

"Coming in?"

"Yeah, I just…need to make a call."

John nodded and entered the room. Methos pulled a smartphone from his pocket and stared at it for a long moment. He ran his thumb across the surface and typed in a code to unlock it. He noted that he had a half dozen unread emails and then scrolled to dial a number.

He had tried to dial that number a dozen, a hundred times, in the past few months.

"Nearly a year." He muttered.

He wasn't sure why he felt an incredibly need to call it now but he did so he would. With mechanical gestures more muscle memory than conscious thought he slowly, deliberately, typed the number in and then, then his thumb hovered over the green call icon and seemed to be frozen. He made a soft pained noise, a noise he wasn't aware of emitting and forced his thumb to hit call.

"Prentiss." It was her, his chest hitched and he felt dizzy for a moment.

"Hello? This is agent Prentiss."

"Emily." He said and found his throat and mouth almost too dry to go on. He coughed cleared his throat and tried again.

"It's me Emily."

He could hear her breaths, soft and even, over the receiver.

"Methos." Not a question, not really.

"Yes."

More silence.

"Are you coming to town?"

He thought about asking her if she wanted him to.

"Seacouver, probably tomorrow."

"I'm on a case."

"I thought you might be."

"Seacouver?"

"Yes."

He heard someone in the background, Morgan or Hotch maybe, it was a male voice, distorted but familiar.

"Rossi needs me. I have to go."

"Should I call?" He asked and noted the desperation in his voice.

"Yes." She replied and hung up.

He felt relief flood through him, knees weak from it he put a hand to the wall of the motel and took a long deep breath. The air tasted of the desert and exhaust he raised his head, took another deep lungful and found he was laughing. John opened the door.

He stared at Methos, half hunched, laughing and leaning against the motel wall.

"Good call?" He asked. Methos straightened and gripped John's upper arm.

"You could say that, let's not keep Sandy waiting." Methos said with a grin.


	4. Fumbling Along

"Who was that?" John asked as Methos entered the room.

The room was a standard motel room, two twin beds, an end table each, a set of drawers with an old TV on top, a corner with an open closet and an iron and a bathroom. Sandy was in the bathroom, Methos heard water running.

"A…well, a friend."

John quirked a smile at Methos.

"Friend?"

Methos sighed like a child that'd been caught at the cookie jar and cut an amused glance at John.

"Your profiler friend." John said and walked to a minifridge Methos hadn't noticed when he entered. John reached in and fished out two beers, he tossed one to Methos and kicked the fridge closed with a heel.

"Yeah, yeah my profiler friend. I don't recall mentioning her to you." Methos half stated, half asked.

"Mmm email, said you were heading to D.C. for a bit of a vacation, offered to meet up. You said-"

"That I was hoping to avoid an F.B.I. profiler I knew, right." Methos said and opened his beer. He took a healthy pull and set the beer on top of the TV.

"That was almost three years ago." Methos said folding his arms and leveling his gaze at John.

"Yes it was. " John agreed.

Methos sucked his teeth in thought though to John it looked a bit like Methos was getting ready to growl. Finally the immortal dropped his shoulders raised his head a fraction and smiled.

"Who have you been talking to?" Methos asked retrieving his beer and sitting at the foot of one of the beds.

"Man named Joe." John said with a smile. Methos laughed a small sound that spoke volumes.

"Joe wouldn't just tell you-"

"He called me actually." John said and finished his beer.

"How the hell did he get your number?"

"It wasn't hard, do you remember that paper we wrote together?"

"Erm, on the Akkadian dynasty?"

"Yes. He looked up your colleagues. He was circumspect, asked if I'd heard from you."

Sandy opened the restroom door interrupting the sensitive conversation.

_Shouting in the dark, _Methos thought, _we're all just shouting in the dark at the end._ He frowned and drank another pull of beer closed his eyes. _Where the hell had that come from?_

"Adam, sorry to keep you waiting, we were going to order pizza; pretend we're college students again." Sandy said her voice had a pleasant pitch to it.

Methos rose from the bed. "I'd love to but I should really catch a cab, try to get a flight north –"

"Municipal airport is closed till morning, and it's a two hour cab ride –" John started.

Methos put his bottle down harder than necessary and watched, somewhat surprised, as the bottle shattered and foaming beer spilled over his hand still grasping the broken neck and the top of the TV. Sandy was at his side with Kleenex in hand, she sopped the beer up. Methos held the broken neck in hand, a bit stunned.

"You're bleeding." Sandy said and took his hand in her's. Methos tugged it free but the damage was done. There was enough blood mixed with the beer to warrant stitches for the wound it'd come from. Only there wasn't a wound. Sandy was sharp, John had said that, Methos tensed and waited for the inevitable question.

She looked at his hand, the bottle neck still clutched, the whole skin, her eyes moved back to the mess of beer and blood and back to his hand, finally settling on his eyes.

"Are you him?" She asked carefully. John had moved to her side, gently took the soggy Kleenex from her and used a face cloth from the bathroom to mop up the mess.

Methos cut a glance toward John, unwilling to claim to be 'him' whoever 'him' was without some kind of sign.

"No." John said giving Methos a slight frown for the immortal's troubles.

"Sandy –" Methos started hoping he could…he could lie, something he didn't think would work. She was clever, observant, academic and _knew_ that impossible things like John were, in fact, possible.

"I know what I saw Adam." She said evenly.

"John." Methos prompted sitting on the bed and tossing the broken bottle neck into a small trashcan nearby.

"He's…he's not like me Sandy he's different."

"You said he was an old friend." She replied.

"Adam?" John asked.

"I'm about five thousand years old, I've known John for well, a very long time." He said using more Kleenex to scrape the sticky beer and blood from his hand.

"But he's not the man you met, the man you thought –"

"Was like me, no he's not." John agreed.

Methos ran his clean hand over his face and rubbed the back of his neck. He stood abruptly and entered the restroom. John and Sandy listened to water running as Methos washed his hands. Sandy's hand slipped into John's.

"John …" She trailed off and bit her lip. He squeezed her hand.

"I'll check on him." He said and released her hand.

Methos was staring into the sink, water still on, seemingly mesmerized by the flow. John twisted the knob and killed the flow. Methos remained still for a moment then reached for a towel and blotted his face, fastidiously wiped his hands and faced John.

"I should go."

John was blocking the doorway.

"I wasn't lying about the airport –"

"Well what do you bloody well suggest John? Shall I stay the night? Swap war stories with your girl? If she knows what I am –"

"I know."

"You're different."

"Methos-"

"Do you ever wonder why you've never told a normal person before?"

John glared at him.

"Because it's not fair John, it's not fucking fair. You move on so maybe you don't get to see what it does to them to watch us never die, to know that while their bodies are failing, while they're growing slower, fatter, weaker, duller, while they're _dying_ we're going on? She knows about you why should she have to know about me too?"

_**A/N Lemme know what y'think. Not sure how far I'll be taking this. I have a couple ideas but I may wrap it up quickish. Do share **_


	5. Resolve

Sandy was quiet as John and Methos emerged from the restroom. John watched Methos closely but the immortal seemed calm.

"I apologize for the mess, allow me to make it up to you when you arrive in Seacouver." Methos said warmly and took Sandy' hand in his. She squeezed his calloused hand and nodded while rising from the bed.

"Don't worry about it really, I'm glad we met." She seemed sincere. Methos nodded and released her hand he glanced at John and nodded toward the exit. John drifted after the immortal sparing a comforting glance and smile for Sandy.

John carefully closed the door behind them and dug into his pocket for the keys to his vehicle.

"Don't bother I'll catch a ride from the diner." Methos said coldly.

John frowned and looked up at the angry immortal.

"Look Methos –"

"It's okay, you're fine I…I am sorry John I didn't mean to cause you more trouble."

"There's another immortal around isn't there?"

"What? You don't think I could have my way with a rancher's daughter?"

"Sure but you wouldn't have to run away afterwards." John laughed.

Methos smiled vaguely and looked away from John, past his truck, to the battered diner at the other side of the parking lot.

"You don't need to go. Really." John said studying his friend's face.

"They all say that." Methos said with a rakish grin.

A comfortable silence fell between them for a moment.

"Will you be in Seacouver when we get there?" John asked searching Methos' face.

"If I can be."

"That's not really an answer."

"Yes well, these last few years my life hasn't exactly been predictable."

"Other immortals?"

"Mostly just one in particular, boy scout with a hero complex." Methos chuckled.

"Well…keep your head Methos or I won't have anyone to talk to before long."

"Remember what I said John, and …try talking to her. Really talking. She may surprise you."

John looked at the closed door and down at his feet.

"I don't love her."

"I know, you've gotten over it too much." Methos said wryly as though puppeting something John had said before.

John looked annoyed and moved to speak.

"Just, give it a chance." Methos said and turned toward the diner.

"You?" John asked eyes slightly wide.

"Bloody cupid." Methos snorted and left John standing on the walkway,the ancient mortal's laughter filling the parking lot.


	6. Funeral

It was raining when they buried Will. Rain in the desert, it fell in hard fat drops, pounding the ground.; making little divots in the still sand, puffs of dusty sand erupting at every impact, the still dry air suddenly fat and sluggish with moisture.

John wiped at the bead of rainwater that had run down his cheek to collect on his jaw as he knelt next to the car. Sandy had come with him to run interference. She was in the chapel now pressing flesh and making polite noises while John did his best to keep from vomiting and running.

He couldn't count how many times he'd longed to take back that night. On a whim he had trusted in the people he had learned to love in his strange stilted way, to admire, to …trust. What an error.

Edith's shocked disillusionment, Will's indignant rage, Art's insecurity, Harry's bad jokes and jibes masking fundamental yawning terror, the awe of Dan followed immediately by his tempestuous wrath and wistful longing…

He hadn't expected them to be so _human_.

Since then he had woken in the night pondering that. Why had he expected them to be no more than the mouthpieces of their professions? He loved and respected the people under the facades, had wanted to say goodbye to _them_, genuinely, as himself and yet their very human responses had floored and shamed him.

Had he become so divorced from normal people that he could make that kind of miscalculation? Had it been hubris? Loneliness? Had he become so used to being alone in the world that the need to be known for what he really was had…

But no, he was known to at least one other. So, that wasn't it…or was it?

Methos, an enigma, not nearly as old as John but doubly cursed with perfect recall and fatal infamy. More chameleon than John could ever be. What kind of confidant was that?

John had it easy, human common sense dismissed his existence as impossible even when presented with what little evidence John had available. If nothing else he had learned _that_ particular lesson hard and well. It was easier to assume a dear friend and colleague had gone made or turned into a malicious bastard than the reality of his impossible existence.

He lifted his head, the last of the nausea fading to an under pulse of discomfort. He heard Sandy's voice, the warm contralto wordless but familiar drifting among the murmuring thread of the still gathering mourners.

He had to say goodbye to his son. Will Gruber, once Chilly Willy Partee. His child, dead too young felled by grief and shock. He lay in rest now with his beloved wife. John weary old and paper thin as he rose to his feet. The rain was still falling, impossible and cleansing. He had resented it at first the inevitable muddy mess of it, the hot stink of super-heated asphalt steaming in the downpour, the too bright glitter of the parking lot's freshly wetted tenants stabbing at his retinas like knives.

Couldn't this day just be over?

It was Sandy who had convinced him to come.

"John"she had said patiently, lovingly, "If you don't go there will be even more questions. I haven't changed my name, Dan or Harry or god Edith will come asking questions."

"I can deal with that, I have before."

"Really? You've told someone what you are and then had to deal with their questions later?" She had asked softly, eyebrow raised and dark eyes glittering.

In the end he had thought it would be easier to attend. Besides, as Sandy had also reminded him, he had told the police he would be at the funeral. Having left no forwarding information with the university there hadn't seemed much other choice.

Which wasn't strictly accurate or true of course. He could have left. In the night on silent feet just walked away. Sandy would take care of the few possessions he still guarded, out of duty, loyalty, or simple consideration. She wasn't the type to take a match to someone's possessions. But even if she were it was just stuff nothing that he couldn't live with.

He could have left and come back one day, decades later on those same silent hunter's feet and retrieved his things.

But he was here now. The service was crowded. In spite of his terse short manner Will Gruber had been beloved by many of his students and colleagues. John vaguely hoped he could enter, sign the book, hide in the rear during the service and slip out before the reception.

As Sandy approached him from the entrance he caught a familiar movement in the crowd. Dan, his long loping stride identifying him among the throng, emerged and raised a hand in greeting.

John licked his lips and heaved one last calming breath before raising his own hand in acknowledgment.

"It's good to see you again." Dan said warmly.

"I wish it were under better circumstances." John said genuinely.

"Sandy said you're leaving for good tonight?"

"Yes." John said following Dan up the steps into the chapel and the pressing crowd.

The low buzzing murmur of dozens of conversations was just loud enough to make casual conversation a challenge. John focused on keeping calm and avoiding everyone he could. Dan stayed at his elbow and after a few minutes Sandy found them.

She slipped one long fingered hand in to his and squeezed. He leaned against her for a moment, as near to a hug as he could get away with. Mercifully the crowd calmed and settled seconds later. He stood in the rear half hidden behind Dan's strong back as the service droned on.

His mind drafted back to similar services and rites he had endured and participated in during his long life. Flashes of memory, hot stone, the rotten subtlety of dead flesh under heavy cloying perfumes, high leaping flames, dry stagnant air he blinked hard and realized he was crying.

"…Was a fine and dedicated educator…" John tuned out the speaker.

He knew a Will, the way the boy had tugged on John's beard thinking it was fake, how he had spent the majority of his life with John ricocheting around their home with their dog, Wolfie, always at his side, how he had often worn a long sleeved shirt or sweater until late July or August, plagued by constant chills.

His Will had been dead to him for decades. John could not reconcile that bright laughing child with the dour, worn, and angry old man who had died in his arms. What was he doing to the people around him? What right did he have to bring people into the world only to leave them when they needed him most?

But then, Will had been a gifted healer in his way. Both a teacher and a physician of the mind. Would, _could_ he have been that without John? John hadn't just sired Will, he had made him the man he had been in one way or another.

"You can't play 'what if' John, what if you had never taken this job? Will would still have died maybe a week from now, maybe months ago. Only you never would have had a chance to get to know him as a man." Sandy had soothed him just before dawn as they sat on the edge of a worn sad bed in a cheap motel room.

So he wouldn't now. Had learned Sandy's lesson lifetimes ago but losing Will…

"…Dr. Will Gruber memorial scholarship…" the dean's lackey droned on solemnly. John knew Will had not had children, he felt the tug of 'what if' at that. Had he chosen not to have children for fear he would leave them as John had left Will?

Sandy's hand in his grounded him as she squeezed his damp palm firmly.

"You're doing great." She whispered.

The service ended at last and the crowd adjourned to a nearby meeting hall for the reception. John turned to Dan to say goodbye but his friend took him by the arm and pulled him through the crowd and out a fire exit. John was caught off guard by the force of Dan's grip and the deafening silence outside the exit. Sandy emerged seconds later looking wary.

"There was a photo." Dan said. His voice was low and urgent. John glanced from Dan to Sandy behind him and back to Dan. He jerked his arm free of Dan's grip and looked hard at his one-time friend.

"What are you talking about?" He snapped a dangerous edge to his voice.

"On the table with the guest book. There was a photo of Will as a boy." Dan said urgently and reached into his pocket. For a wild moment John thought Dan would draw out a weapon in a macabre salute to Will's faux threat from that same cursed night.

Instead Dan revealed a black and white photo in a heavy gilded frame. The frame was old and cheap, garish in the clean desert light. The rain had ceased during the service and in another fifteen minutes all signs of the shower would have vanished.

Smiling up from the photo were two strangers; a boy between six and eight with a shaggy shepherd looking mutt of some kind and a man. The man was dressed in slacks, long shirt sleeves rolled above his elbows, eyes alight with an easy smile. John's eyes.

"Tell me why Will had a heart attack John." Dan whispered. John forced himself to look away from the photograph and meet Dan's eyes. John's gaze dropped first.

"It wasn't a story; at least, it wasn't a fictional story." John said softly y and was surprised to realize the nausea had finally faded and been replaced by the hot sting of unshed tears.

"I knew it." Dan sighed and relaxed. He put a strong hand on John's shoulder and held out a hand for the photo.

"It will be missed." He said gently. Sandy leaned against John again and this time John snaked an arm around her and held her close in a side hug. John handed the photo back to Dan and looked up at his friend's face.

"Will I see you again?" Dan asked.

"I –"

"Move on. I know but I don't mean any harm John, you're my friend. I'll miss you either way but if you say yes, even if it's a lie it'll give me hope. A man can go a long time on hope."

Would he see Dan again? One of the few people he had bothered to keep in any kind of touch with had been Methos. What would it be like to enjoy a long term friendship with a normal person? To know someone for more than ten short years? Someone who knew what he was …

"Okay, you'll see me again Dan." Said softly. Even he wasn't sure if it was a lie.


End file.
